Moments after Mitt Romney’s landslide victory in the Florida Republican Primary, WND Editor Joseph Farah declared on national television that Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio would not be a good selection for vice president because he’s not a natural-born citizen of the U.S., and therefore is not legally qualified to hold the office.

“Rubio’s not eligible … because he’s not a natural-born citizen,” Farah told Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel.

Farah’s comment came during discussion about GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who finished third in Florida with 13 percent of the vote, behind Romney’s 46 percent and Newt Gingrich’s 32 percent.

“Well, I think Santorum’s doing one of two things,” Farah explained. “I think he’s either trying to position himself as, ‘There’s no mud on me and I’m a bonafide conservative,’ and maybe that’s going to propel him to the front of the race. Or that other thing that had crossed my mind when he was really talking about Newt criticizing Romney, the thought occurred to me, ‘Is he trying to position himself for a vice-presidential candidacy there?'”

“Rubio’s not eligible,” Farah interjected. “You’re going to lose 10 percent of the Republican vote because he’s not a natural-born citizen. We’ve been through this with Obama now for four years. You want to open that can of worms again?”

Rubio’s press secretary Alex Burgos said the senator’s parents “were permanent legal residents of the U.S.” at the time Marco was born in Miami in 1971.

Then four years after Marco was born, “Mario and Oriales Rubio became naturalized U.S. citizens on Nov. 5, 1975,” Burgos told WND.

When asked specifically if Sen. Rubio considered himself to be a natural-born citizen, Burgos responded, “Yes.”

In August, some in the national news media went on to write commentary pieces declaring Rubio to be a natural-born citizen, which the Constitution requires for anyone to hold the office of president.

Among them was Matt Lewis of the Daily Caller, who stated: “Who knows how big this thing will get? Maybe it’s just a small fringe movement – but it is a ‘thing.’ The good news here, of course, is that the rise of Rubio birthers proves that birthers are not merely partisan hypocrites who solely attack Democrats like Obama. They are, instead, either consistent racists – or consistently misguided adherents to the Constitution. But hey – at least they aren’t partisan hacks.”

President Obama has been dogging allegations that he is not eligible for office because he admits that one of his parents – specifically his father – was not a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth, irrespective of his actual birthplace. Many constitutional experts maintain a natural-born citizen means being the child of two U.S. citizen parents at the time of birth.

WND reported this week that efforts to prevent Obama’s name from appearing on election ballots this November because of that anomaly have now spread to six U.S. states.
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